Practice Makes Permanent

When you practice your technique, you make it very consistent. People often say that PracticeMakesPerfect?, but that only applies if what you are practicing is "perfect". You can spend all day practicing a tennis backhand, but if you have the mechanics wrong, you are going to have a very consistent, very inferior backhand. Worse, you are now further from improving that backhand.

This is where feedback, in the form of coaching, comes in. Part of a coach's job is to analyze your technique and keep correcting it until you have it right. He or she shouldn't let you practice bad technique undisturbed.

Practicing good technique leads to consistently good technique ("perfect"). Practicing bad technique leads to consistently bad technique.

I think PracticeMakesAutomatic? is another important aspect. It means, that something not only becomes permanent (i.e. cannot be/is not forgotten), but becomes routine in a way, that you need not think about it any longer. In the bad backhand example this can very well come out as a negative. One not only needs to think about it, but one even cannot think about it - without practicing the reflection about the process, thus adding another routine layer.


Two times two equals five.

Two times two equals five.

Two times two equals five.

If I repeat the above enough, maybe I'll start to believe it.


A note that is completely off-topic on this page; a note about there being more than one right answer:

Two times two is five -- when you're dealing with sets of 1.25.


1 + 2 = 5, according to KingArthur?.


It's "two plus two equals five", as per NineteenEightyFour.


See also AntiExperience

CategoryEducation


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